To offer customers a wide variety of products that are readily available for delivery, a merchant (whether engaging in electronic or conventional “brick and mortar” commerce) may store those products in warehouses, fulfillment centers, or other inventory facilities. Keeping products in inventory may serve to attenuate variations in customer demand and/or in a manufacturer or distributor's ability to supply those products. For example, in some cases, different products offered for sale by a merchant may have different manufacturer lead times, and holding certain quantities of those products “in stock” may enable a merchant to make such products available to customers in a more consistent fashion.
Generally speaking, when a merchant operates a fulfillment network that includes geographically distributed fulfillment centers, the same product may be stocked in two or more of those fulfillment centers. As such, when an order for that product is received by the merchant, the merchant may select one of its various fulfillment centers to fulfill the order. In most cases, the merchant may simply use the fulfillment center that is closest to the delivery address specified in the order in an attempt to reduce shipping costs from the fulfillment center to the customer.
In order to allocate the available inventory across its fulfillment network so that each fulfillment center may be stocked in a manner that is appropriate for its corresponding geographic region, a merchant may determine a demand forecast for products in those regions. Once the demand for a given product is known in each region, the merchant may then distribute the available quantities of that product (e.g., from a distribution center or hub, directly from vendors, etc.) to each fulfillment center in amounts that are proportional to their respective demand forecasts.
While the invention is susceptible to various modifications and alternative forms, specific embodiments thereof are shown by way of example in the drawings and will herein be described in detail. It should be understood, however, that the drawings and detailed description thereto are not intended to limit the invention to the particular form disclosed, but on the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the present invention as defined by the appended claims. The headings used herein are for organizational purposes only and are not meant to be used to limit the scope of the description or the claims. As used throughout this application, the word “may” is used in a permissive sense (i.e., meaning having the potential to), rather than the mandatory sense (i.e., meaning must). Similarly, the words “include,” “including,” and “includes” mean including, but not limited to.